Internet Draft






L2TPEXT Working Group                                        Vipin Rawat
INTERNET DRAFT                                       Cisco Systems, Inc.
Category: Internet Draft                                        Rene Tio
Title: draft-ietf-l2tpext-fr-00.txt               Redback Networks, Inc.
Date: July 2000                                              Rohit Verma
                                                     Deloitte Consulting









          Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) over Frame Relay
                     <draft-ietf-l2tpext-fr-00.txt>



Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full
   conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet
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Abstract

   Layer Two Tunneling Protocol describes a mechanism to
   tunnel PPP sessions.  The protocol has been designed to be
   independent of the media it runs over. The base



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INTERNET DRAFT                                                 July 2000


   specification describes how it should be implemented to
   run over UDP and IP. This document describes how the Layer
   Two Tunneling Protocol MUST be implemented over Frame
   Relay PVCs and SVCs.


Applicability

   This specification is intended for those implementations
   which desire to use facilities which are defined for L2TP.
   These capabilities require a point-to-point relationship
   between peers, and are not designed for multi-point
   relationships which is available in Frame Relay and other
   NBMA environments.

1.0 Introduction

   L2TP [1] defines a general purpose mechanism for tunneling
   PPP over various media.  By design, it insulates L2TP
   operation from the details of the media over which it
   operates. The base protocol specification illustrates how
   L2TP may be used in IP environments. This draft specifies
   the encapsulation of L2TP over native Frame Relay and
   addresses relevant issues.

2.0 Conventions

   The following language conventions are used in the items
   of specification in this document:


        o  MUST, SHALL, or MANDATORY -- This item is an
        absolute requirement of the specification.

        o  SHOULD or RECOMMEND -- This item should generally
        be followed for all but exceptional circumstances.

        o  MAY or OPTIONAL -- This item is truly optional and
        may be followed or ignored according to the needs of
        the implementor.

3.0 Problem Space Overview

   In this section we describe in high level terms the scope
   of the problem being addressed.






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INTERNET DRAFT                                                 July 2000


   Topology:
         +------+           +---------------+          |
         | PSTN |           |  Frame Relay  |          |
   User--|      |----LAC ===|               |=== LNS --+ LANs
         | ISDN |           |     Cloud     |          |
         +------+           +---------------+          |


   L2TP Access Concentrator (LAC) is a device attached to the
   switched network fabric (e.g. PSTN or ISDN) or co-located
   with a PPP end system capable of handling the L2TP
   protocol.  The LAC need only implement the media over
   which L2TP is to operate to pass traffic to one or more
   LNS's.  It may tunnel any protocol carried within PPP.

   L2TP Network Server (LNS) operates on any platform capable
   of PPP termination.  The LNS handles the server side of
   the L2TP protocol. L2TP is connection-oriented.  The LNS
   and LAC maintain state for each user that is attached to
   an LAC.  A session is created when an end-to-end PPP
   connection is attempted between a user and the LNS. The
   datagrams related to a session are sent over the tunnel
   between the LAC and LNS.  A tunnel is defined by an LNS-
   LAC pair.  The tunnel carries PPP datagrams between the
   LAC and the LNS.

   L2TP protocol operates at a level above the particular
   media over which it is carried.  However, some details of
   its connection to media are required to permit
   interoperable implementations.  L2TP over IP/UDP is
   described in the base draft [1]. Issues related to L2TP
   over Frame Relay are addressed in later sections of this
   draft.

4.0 Encapsulation and Packet Format

   L2TP MUST be able to share a Frame Relay virtual circuit
   (VC) with other protocols carried over the same VC. The
   Frame Relay header format for data packet needs to be
   defined to identify the protocol being carried in the
   packets. The Frame Relay network MAY NOT understand these
   formats.

   All protocols over this circuit MUST encapsulate their
   packets within a Q.922 frame. Additionally, frames MUST
   contain information necessary to identify the protocol
   carried within the frame relay Protocol Data Unit (PDU),
   thus allowing the receiver to properly process the



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INTERNET DRAFT                                                 July 2000


   incoming packet.

   The frame format for L2TP is based on SNAP encapsulation
   as defined in RFC 1490 [5] and FRF3.1 [2] . SNAP format
   uses NLPID followed by Organizationally Unique Identifier
   and a PID.

   NLPID

   The single octet identifier provides a mechanism to allow
   easy protocol identification. For L2TP NLPID value 0x80 is
   used which indicates the presence of SNAP header.

   OUI & PID

   The three-octet Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI)
   0x00-00-5E identifies IANA who administers the meaning of
   the Protocol Identifier (PID) 0x0007.  Together they
   identify a distinct protocol.

   Format of L2TP frames encapsulated in Frame Relay is given
   in Figure 1.

          Octet            1               2
                 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
                +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
            1   |         Q.922 Address         |
                +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
            3   | Control  0x03 | pad   0       |
                +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
            5   | NLPID 0x80    |  OUI  0x00    |
                +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+               +
            7   | OUI     0x00-5E               |
                +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
            9   | PID     0x0007                |
                +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                |                               |
                |          L2TP packet          |
                |                               |
                +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                |              FCS              |
                +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
           Figure 1  Format for L2TP frames encapsulated in
                          Frame Relay


5.0 MTU Considerations




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INTERNET DRAFT                                                 July 2000


   FRF.12 [4] is the Frame Relay Fragmentation Implementation
   Agreement. If fragmentation is not supported, the two
   Frame Relay endpoints MUST support an MTU size of at least
   PPP Max-Receive-Unit size + PPP header size + Max L2TP
   Header Size + Frame Relay header size (PPP header size is
   the protocol field size plus HDLC framing bytes, which is
   required by L2TP).  To avoid packet discards on the Frame
   Relay interface, the RECOMMENDED default Frame Relay MTU
   is 1564 based on a PPP default MRU of 1500. The means to
   ensure these MTU settings are left to implementation.

6.0 QOS Issues

   In general, QoS mechanisms can be roughly provided for
   with proprietary mechanisms localized within the LAC or
   LNS.  Interworking issues with various QoS implementations
   is therefore at this time left as a topic for future
   study.


7.0 Frame Relay and L2TP Interaction

   In case of Frame Relay SVCs, connection setup will be
   triggered when L2TP tries to create a tunnel. Details of
   triggering mechanism are left to implementation. There
   SHALL NOT be any change in Frame Relay SVC signaling due
   to L2TP. The endpoints of the L2TP tunnel MUST be
   identified by X.121/E.164 addresses in case of Frame Relay
   SVC. These addresses MAY be obtained as tunnel endpoints
   for a user as defined in [3]. In case of PVCs, the Virtual
   Circuit to carry L2TP traffic MAY be configured
   administratively. The endpoints of the tunnel MUST be
   identified by DLCI, assigned to the PVC at configuration
   time. This DLCI MAY be obtained as tunnel endpoints for a
   user as defined in [3].

   There SHALL be no framing issues between PPP and Frame
   Relay. PPP frames received by LAC from remote user are
   stripped of CRC, link framing, and transparency bytes,
   encapsulated in L2TP, and forwarded over Frame Relay
   tunnel.

8.0 Security Considerations

   Currently there is no standard specification for Frame
   Relay security although the Frame Relay Forum is working
   on a Frame Relay Privacy Agreement.  In light of this
   work, the issue of security will be re-examined at a later



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INTERNET DRAFT                                                 July 2000


   date to see if L2TP over Frame Relay specific protection
   mechanisms are still required.  Meanwhile, if stronger
   security mechanisms is required, the use of IP as an
   intermediate transport layer with IPsec [6] for security
   is RECOMMENDED.

9.0 Acknowledgments

   Ken Pierce (3Com Corporation) and (Rick Dynarski 3Com
   Corporation) contributed to the editing of this document.


10.0 References

   [1]  Valencia et al., "Layer Two Tunneling Protocol
   'L2TP'", RFC 2661, August 1999.

   [2]  Multiprotocol Encapsulation Implementation Agreement,
   FRF.3.1 , Frame Relay Forum Technical Committee, June 1995

   [3]  G. Zorn, D. Leifer, A. Rubens, J. Shriver.  "RADIUS
   Attributes for Tunnel Protocol Support."  Internet draft
   (work in progress).

   [4]  Frame Relay Fragmentation Implemenation Agreement,
   FRF.12, Frame Relay Forum Technical Committee, December
   1997

   [5] T. Bradley, C. Brown, A. Malis, "Multiprotocol
   Interconnect over Frame Relay", RFC 1490, July 1993

   [6] B. Patel, B. Aboda.  "Securing L2TP using IPSEC."
   Internet draft (work in progress).


















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INTERNET DRAFT                                                 July 2000


11.0 Author's Addresses

Vipin Rawat
Cisco Systems, Inc.
170 West Tasman Drive
San Jose CA 95134-1706
vrawat@cisco.com


Rene Tio
Redback Networks, Inc.
1195 Borregas Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
tor@redback.com


Rohit Verma
Deloitte Consulting
180 N. Stetson Avenue
Chicago Illinois 60601
rverma@dc.com


Suhail Nanji
Redback Networks, Inc.
350 Holger Way
San Jose, CA 95134
suhail@redback.com


J. Senthilnathan
3Com Corporation
1800 West Central Road
Mount Prospect, IL 60056
janakiraman_senthilnathan@3com.com
















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